George Mueller lived a life devoted to God’s ministry and he is well-known for his missionary efforts in orphan homes throughout England. Circumstances in the mid-1800’s in England were tough, but he chose never to fund raise. Mueller felt strongly that God would provide for his needs and the needs of others through his petitions of prayer. He loved the characteristic of God as the “Father to the fatherless” and so he trusted God for the daily, monthly, and yearly support he needed to keep the orphan homes going. Daily prayer and Bible study were apart of his everyday life. As I read his words, I am challenged to spend more time in the Word for myself, not just for the sake of my ministry with others, but for the benefit of my soul. As you read his journal entry below, I pray that you are encouraged by this man’s faith and challenged by his lifestyle of ministry. May you be nourished and strengthened by the Word…

          “Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer after having dressed in the morning. Now, I saw that the most important thing was to give myself to reading God’s Word, and to meditate on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed….

          This first thing I did, after having asked in a few words of the Lord’s blessing upon his precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word of God, searching as it were into every verse to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of public ministry, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul.

          The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that, though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less to prayer. When thus I have been for a while making confession or intercession or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go, into prayer for myself or others, as the Word may lead to it, but still continually keeping before me that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation. The result of this is that…my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened…”

                    The Journal of George Mueller

                    Spring 1841, Bristol England